Jakarta, Indonesia Sentinel — The Vera Rubin Observatory, perched atop Cerro Pachón in Chile’s Andes Mountains, has unveiled its first images of deep space, capturing light from millions of stars and distant galaxies with unprecedented clarity. The images, taken during a 10-hour test run, also revealed thousands of previously undetected asteroids, including several near-Earth objects.
Equipped with the world’s largest astronomical camera and groundbreaking mirror design, the Vera Rubin Observatory is poised to revolutionize space observation.
“The NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will collect more information about our universe than all previous optical telescopes combined,” said Brian Stone, acting director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), in a statement, as reported by CNN on Monday.
Among its early discoveries are 2,104 asteroids, seven of which are classified as near-Earth, but researchers say none pose a threat. The observatory is expected to identify millions more within its first two years of operation. Scientists also see Vera Rubin Observatory as the most promising tool to spot interstellar comets or asteroids that may pass through the solar system.
One of Vera Rubin Observatory key advantages is its unmatched speed and sensitivity, allowing it to capture thousands of wide-field images each night and detect faint objects that might otherwise go unnoticed. During the test phase, the camera also recorded around 10 million galaxies, just 0.05% of the 20 billion it is projected to catalog over the next decade.
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Researchers released a detailed mosaic of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas, star-forming regions in the Sagittarius constellation, composed of 678 separate images captured over seven hours. The composite reveals previously unseen features, such as delicate clouds of interstellar gas and dust located thousands of light-years from Earth.
The observatory is set to begin official science operations on July 4 using its 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope, offering a powerful new view of the southern sky and the heart of the Milky Way galaxy.
Aaron Roodman, a particle physicist at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and head of the Rubin camera assembly and testing, described the observatory as a “discovery machine” capable of highlighting areas of interest for further exploration by other telescopes.
“Rubin offers incredible potential to help us understand dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe,” Roodman said. “Its unique ability to observe billions of galaxies repeatedly over a decade will allow us to see the universe in a completely new way.”
(Raidi/Agung)
